Exploration of the use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) or drones by industry for delivering goods and products is rapidly expanding. Drones are convenient for rapid point-to-point delivery; however, drawbacks exist. Drones are conspicuous, particularly when making an approach for landing and delivery. Drones may become vulnerable to unwanted attention from malicious actors in the form of theft, damage, and vandalism of the goods for delivery and of the drone itself. As drones near a delivery zone, the drones may be spotted and followed to their ultimate delivery destination. Further, these spottings may be reported on social media enabling malicious actors to intercept them and/or determine their ultimate destination. Drone deliveries may be scheduled on-line, whereupon delivery destination information and delivery status updates via social media may be intercepted and used to locate a drone and a drone delivery destination. After delivery, a package is susceptible to theft or damage when left unattended. The control of a drone may be intercepted or interfered with in-flight such as by intercepting, jamming and/or imitating global positioning or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals (e.g. pirate signals) and directing the drone to a surrogate landing zone. It should be noted that other satellite systems may provide similar satellite navigation capability, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) deployed by the U.S, GLONASS used by the Russian military, Galileo for civilian use in the European Union, and other satellite navigations systems. A drone may lose communications with GNSS or navigational systems due to terrain features, dead spots, or GNSS outage, and may become lost, thereby putting the delivery contents at risk.
Related challenges exist for verifying that a customer received a package from a drone (i.e., drone delivery verification). In conventional delivery services, particularly for expensive goods, a driver obtains a signature from the package recipient, which serves to verify that the package was properly delivered. Conventional deliveries can insure shipments and reimburse in the event of loss/theft in transit given this ability to verify delivery. The recipient's signature establishes that delivery was accomplished, and responsibility for the package shifted from the carrier and to the recipient.